News

With basketball out, U of Illinois arena work ramps up

Posted March 06, 2015 10:00 pm

The Associated Press

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. (AP) - Within minutes of the buzzer at the University of Illinois' basketball game Wednesday decorative banners in the State Farm Center started coming down. And nothing, except for construction work, will happen in the building for nine months.

The university's three-year, $169.5 million renovation project is expected to end in December.

But project director Warren Hood told The News-Gazette in Champaign (http://bit.ly/1BPgjE0 ) that with this basketball season's home games finished the pace of work will pick up. Construction will run 20 hours a day, six days a week until December.

By Thursday afternoon hundreds of seats from the lowest section were gone.

The Illini men's team will play its first five home games next season in Springfield. The women's team has yet to announce where it will play its early games.

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Information from: The News-Gazette, http://www.news-gazette.com

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